Entries in Eddie Redmayne
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New Series! Three Fittings celebrates costume design in the movies. The number is necessary self-restraint for we love the art of costuming too much.

By Nathaniel R

Dear reader, I didn't think I'd ever need to see Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016). I thought, solid reasoning given the golden trajectory of most franchises, that Oscar would want to move on after a year of regular craft nominations for the series. I thought, surely they'd never hand one of them an actual Oscar if they hadn't done so by now. But in the interest of completism, after Colleen Atwood's generous fourth statue for costuming this particular movie and its bluray release, I caught up.

I was both impressed and utterly perplexed by what I found.

While Atwood does unusually understated work (for her), there are far fewer costumes than you might expect (approximately one per man, two per woman). Sussing out why they voted for this confident minimalism within a fantasy over more traditional costume perfection in Jackie, the primary color bliss of then-frontrunner La La Land, the erotic glamour of Allied, and the flouncy Most-ness of Florence, proves nearly impossible.

Jason from MNPP here -- isn't it strange, the stories that suddenly catch fire with the movie-makers and ignite dueling projects that race towards the finish line to beat the other to the eyes of the public? You've got your Volcano and Dante's Peak, you've got Deep Impact and Armageddon, and for those of you who don't see Disaster Movies as the be-all end-all of the cinematic form you've got Capote and Infamous... in which that southern writer was tossed at New York Society like a killer meteorite from outer space.

Today comes new news of another bizarre example - the the 1880s a battle over who would best monetize the invention of electricity was waged between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison, and all of sudden, some one-hundred-and-thirty odd years later, it's all Hollywood wants to talk about.

I've been following the momentum of the movie called The Current War semi-regularly over at MNPP because a cast of handsome dudes have been attaching and un-attaching themselves from it for a few months -- as of right now the film will star Nicholas Hoult, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, and just today Spider-man himself Tom Holland has joined the cast. Oh and Katherine Waterston too, because I guess there needs to be a token wife character who frets at the sidelines of all the men's manly business. The Current War will be directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who made Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and it's set to start filming next month.

Meanwhile everybody's favorite Oscar nominee Morten Tyldum is making a film called The Last Days of Night, based on a book by the same title, which tells the story from the point of view of Westinghouse's lawyer, who will be played by Eddie Redmayne. That movie is supposed to start filming in February. Do you think Benedict Cumberbatch and Morten both had their light-bulb moments (as it were) on the set of The Imitation Game, and this is some kind of secret spiteful race between the two of them? That's how I'm making entertainment out of the story for myself anyway.

Perhaps sensing that everyone will be sick of looking at him by the tail end of 2017 (what with the multiple Oscar nominated transformations, the actual Oscar, and that new Fantastic Beasts franchise), Eddie Redmayne will give his ginger mug a wee break from gigantification on the big screen. Instead he'll be leading the voice cast of Aardman's Early Man which just went into production for release in 2018. The best part of the news is that Nick Park will be directing and he's been absent from that particular chair for too long. (His last feature was 11 long years ago, the Oscar winning Curse of the Were Rabbit.)

You can pencil it in for a Best Animated Feature nomination right now (albeit two years from now) because Aardman has quite a track record of delights (sorry Flushed Away!). They've got a heavy shelf of awards to prove it including Oscar nominations for A Grand Day Out (1989) and A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008), The Pirates: Band of Misfits (2012), and Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and four Oscar wins via Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

Are you sick of looking at Eddie Redmayne yet or do you vow to never tire of that weird handsomeness?

Murtada here to continue the conversation about upcoming projects from actors who've just walked red carpets and absorbed whatever limelight got past the Leo coronation. We've dealt with the winners and the actresses, let's turn our attention to the men.

Christian Bale: Coming up first is The Promise with Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon (The Walk), a love triangle set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. He recently signed on to star in Scott Cooper’s Western drama Hostiles.

As noted by the recently departed Alan Rickman on his BAFTA win for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves "Subtlety isn't everything." As far as Oscar is concerned, this year Best Actor was go big or go home. Take a look the leading men outside the bubble and you'll find mostly nuanced performances like those from Michael B. Jordan, Tom Courtenay, and Tom Hanks with their scenery unchewed. Rewarding more broad work has made this the Year of the Ham.

Some of the bigger choices have been more welcome than others in this field, so let's have some fun assessing the hammage:

Bryan Cranston - TrumboClearly the most guilty of going big for its own sake, Cranston's nomination leaves quite a sour taste in your mouth. The performance feels built upon arched shoulders and mustaches, even if Cranston is a game actor admirably going along with the film's schlocky tone. It's not just the scenery getting chewed, but the script, the costumes, the camera, and poor Diane Lane. It's so hammy, he even shows us his hams in a prison scene.Level of Ham: SPAM - some people like it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Matt Damon - The MartianHere's a role that actually calls upon the actor to be a ham. Matt Damon gets to use more of his natural charm than he has in anything outside of the Ocean's franchise and spends much of his performance breaking the fourth wall. He leans in on the nerd humor that's heavy on puns and dirty words, but thankfully never goes full broski. Everything lands, including his unexpected emotional moments, but this a performance playing right to the crowd. The visible hams are an obvious emaciated stunt double.Level of Ham: Honey-Baked - generally pleasing to everyone